Entries By Serena Mithane
Displaying 1 To 30 Of 58 Entries
trench
I remember you most in frayed gray trenchcoats and the way you always said mysteries don’t end with their solutions.
There were questions left unanswered when you took off unnamed under a fedora that shaded your eyes from the reality that you were never coming back.
And I took every single clue there was to try and map out the fingerprints you left all over my memory and an attempt at looking for notes that resembled your handwriting because I refused to believe that there were mysteries that weren’t made to be figured out.
Because the only things I allowed to be unsolvable were people as dysfunctional as you.
And maybe I was just unprepared to face the truth of how improbable the evidence left was because I tried to prove to myself that it was impossible that I couldn’t defy the logic that came with your deductions so effortlessly.
It was difficult to accept that you were right when you said that mysteries don’t always end with their solutions.
Because I couldn’t find you anywhere- my eyes could only assume to see you everywhere.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 04.09.2013 @ 10:27 am
flour
I would like to believe I’m a well-made cake. But the truth is, I’m still in the making. Sometimes I realize the flour isn’t sifted yet. Or that I don’t really know what baking soda is for. The oven is outdated by now. And unfortunately, I don’t know how to turn on the gas. I constantly burn my fingers on too-short matches. I keep trying to knead out my rough patches. Without realizing that there is such thing as too much. I have never been very good at baking. I keep telling myself I will be a three-tiered piece. But my layers keep crumbling into themselves. And I think I may have used salt instead of sugar. I rely too much on frosting to cover up mistakes. There are places where the mixture failed. And I am not a masterpiece ready for a celebration. The cake did not rise up like it had planned to. You would think following a recipe would be easy. But instructions are not always concise. Life is not always that predictable. And sometimes you really are just clumsy. But I am more than measuring cups. I am not just well-branded ingredients wasted. I am an effort of three hours and flour patches. I am a honey-stained apron on a Saturday morning. I am what children try to make for their mothers as thank you. I am what the awkward guy tried to make on Valentine’s day. I am what the lonely watch professionals succeed at on motionless days. I am the holder of wishes as the world makes revolutions. I am more than just a failed attempt at doing something step-by-step. So why do you keep saying I’m a lie?
Posted By Serena Mithane On 04.07.2013 @ 5:09 am
vines
The vines outside my house slowly start to take over and trap me inside but I’ve long given up on the idea that the outside meant any kind of freedom for me. And I watch as the vines grow and the way they can’t stand on their own and think to myself that they’re lucky that when people get their fruit it can at least be used for celebrations and they help people want to be more free- which is more than what you can say for me.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 04.05.2013 @ 10:10 am
plague
It had started with a tiny ticking noise in my head, and from there I don’t know how it spread. All I know is that it was driving me crazy. It kept repeating itself, like the sound of a clock. So I ran through my house smashing every last timepiece I could find. I hate it. I kept hearing it and it was reminding me that I was too late.
I was too late.
I didn’t come on time.
I should have.
Tick. Tock. Tick;. Tock.
They found out the clock virus was a plague that had started because of a hack in human psyche. Initially harmless, they say, it did have the capacity, however, to drive others to madness depending on their psychological profiles. That was when the dangers started of the ticktock virus started to settle in.
To this day, they have no cure.
And one day, it will bring me to a screeching halt as my mind snaps.
Then they will all be too late.
Too late.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 03.31.2013 @ 8:45 am
bronze
I picked up the medal and dusted off some of the sand from it. It had an old faded eagle on it, but the text at the bottom had been scratched off and was barely readable. I flipped it around in my fingers and closed my eyes to wait until I could feel the past washing over me. There was a wreckage. And there were several gunshots. I could hear children screaming, and felt the blood splatter all over my face. This was the worst part of this ability – for now I was really in the moment. I could smell the gunpowder, and taste the blood drying on my lip. This medal had fallen off in a struggle to get past defenses, to try and get back home to a family.
“For glory and honor.”
The bronze eagle was proud as it beamed up at the sky, falling from the tattered uniform of a man who had lost his head for what they claimed was the greater good.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 03.29.2013 @ 8:12 am
terrain
I stood there on the peak of the cliff and overlooked the town. I remember way back when they promised we would be the aid of the human race. But no one knows what’s happened since then – why they started becoming so afraid of us.
But then, they did say I might have been a defective model of the original artificial human blueprints.
They didn’t expect models to develop emotional capabilities. Empathy. They couldn’t understand that I could make art. They wanted to deactivate me, and that started causing a riff.
Now I’m just sitting here on a park bench I love watching the town from.
I don’t know when all this started to happen. I don’t know when I started becoming more human.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 03.10.2013 @ 9:10 am
also
There have been movements. We’ve wanted to be accepted for the longest time – but humans have always considered us inferior. Eventually we became angry. We wanted to be considered equals – after all, we had the capacity to emulate sentience. The only difference was that we were logical – but there were also logical people in the world. The trouble was that we were /also/ artificial, along with being logical.
We, however, didn’t see why that mattered.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 03.09.2013 @ 7:03 am
bleeding
She didn’t notice she was bleeding until someone pointed out quite calmly that her arm was gone. This was when she turned her head and stared at the stump on her arm, and nodded to agree with him.
“Why yes, it appears I am bleeding. I’m armless now.”
I couldn’t really comprehend what was going on, and looked between the two of them. They were strangers to me, but I couldn’t help being concerned enough. I asked if they had any plans of taking her to the hospital.
She just stared at me that it was refreshing that for once, she got to experience having blood gushing out of her.
The two laughed, and they walked away while she left a slowly disappearing blood trail behind her, and I noticed their sillhouettes fading off into the distance, and the girl put up her new arm around the guy’s shoulder.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 02.26.2013 @ 10:30 pm
murder
It had all began with a murder. It sounds innocuous enough, or as innocuous as a murder could possibly be. However, it was from that chain events that slowly began the extermination of essential life forms for the survival of the human race. This was when many officials began to worry about the future, and had started the development of a back up plan. So they took the murderer and from there used him as a base for developing a new systematized human replacement. This was after his execution, of course.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 02.03.2013 @ 6:30 am
systems
There were many more like me here. We had eyes that lit up with ones and zeroes, and that was the language we all understood. It wasn’t that we weren’t human, though many tried to tell us that. We were in fact, made as close to flesh and blood as we could be. It was the only way the rest of them would survive, through the creation of us. We were the artificial human systems. We tried our best to fit in, but understanding all these illogical things of humanity was difficult.
But we tried.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 02.02.2013 @ 2:53 am
employees
They walked around in their gray ties and squared shoulders, trying to ignore the repetitive ticking of the clock.
They all knew they were going to die one day. The only difference would be that no one would particularly notice. It was alright though, they knew nothing was immortal.
The only thing that would last forever would be this monotonous cycle.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 11.16.2012 @ 1:04 am
fresh
He tasted the mint on her tongue, and immediately knew that she had been lying to him. He knew her taste far too well by now.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 10.11.2012 @ 8:13 am
mass
You put the weight of your world on my shoulders, and took my hand so we could run through the world and show them how happy you were now.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 10.09.2012 @ 2:13 am
breath
So you took my breath away and trapped it in a bottle, for the greatest theft of your life. You put your ninja mask on and hopped off the window ledge to throw the bottle into the sea, and told me that maybe I’d be lucky enough to get it back one day.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 09.28.2012 @ 5:56 am
comfort
She wrapped her blanket around herself. It was new, and he bought it that night before he left, and told her he wanted to keep her warm. She hated it, it smelled like mothballs and was nothing compared to the feel of his arms.
But she needed something to stall her while she finished sewing the pieces of his arms back together.
If she couldn’t have his arms around her, nobody could.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.21.2012 @ 8:54 am
concept
I drifted through the mist and fog. I wonder what it must be like for all the other characters that got stories.
It’s cold, here in this place. Maybe one day I’ll be saved. The chances of that are small though. No one really comes back to get you from here. Only a couple were eventually given their own stories. Their own worlds. A purpose. An adventure.
A life.
Sadly, not everyone of us gets those.
A forgotten concept is never so lucky.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.12.2012 @ 11:48 am
backspace
Her life was heading far too fast. She wanted it all to just go away, and she covered hear ears with her palms and started to scream. Maybe if she could scream loud enough, she could drown out the world. She shut her eyes and felt tears streaming down her cheeks, and silently prayed to a god she didn’t believe in. Just for something, anything that could save her.
She slowly opened her eyes and blinked in surprise at the site of the laptop in front of her. A simple notepad application, with what appeared to be her entire life story. And then she realized what she wanted.
She highlighted the bits of her life she didn’t like, and smiled when she realized how easy it would be to press backspace.
The next day, no one really knew who she was. She was broken, automated. Almost inhuman. Something was wrong, like there were bits of her missing. Then they realized it- when they looked into her eyes, it was like there were dead pixels.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 05.18.2012 @ 7:47 am
dusk
The smell of something rotten was the only reason anyone noticed she was gone. They found her body at dusk. 2 weeks after.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 12.21.2011 @ 3:40 am
beginning
It began with a marker in a bathroom stall, tucked away in a gas station far from where people expected her to be. She wrote out her last words for the world on the back of its door before leaving.
Then she drove off to the old motel with a gun in her hand. They found her the next day and said she died without a suicide note.
They had renovated the gas station, starting with painting over all the graffiti in the bathroom. People were glad, they said it was full of nothing but nonsense and vulgarity.
A blank slate. A new beginning.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 11.12.2011 @ 8:43 am
conviction
I hated that my flaw used to be a lack of conviction. Maybe you could have believed me when I told you I loved you, if I was the speaker I was now, back then.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 10.11.2011 @ 10:43 pm
mystery
There are mysteries that even I couldn’t solve. One of which would be why she had a cheese fetish.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 10.09.2011 @ 3:46 am
clipped
He held the lock of hair he had clipped from her head, and she stared back in horror as it turned to ash in his fingers. It was then that he learned: she was more mortal than she gave herself credit for.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 09.10.2011 @ 4:12 am
silk
And as he ran his fingers through her hair, he realized he missed the feel of silky hair more than anything else. Right now, hers just felt like straw.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.24.2011 @ 8:05 am
transport
She closed the door behind her and the car drove away.
A new life, she sighed to herself, as the town’s image grew smaller.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.21.2011 @ 8:36 am
succeed
People called her the most successful woman of her time. But she looked around her and told herself she didn’t succeed in anything; she wasn’t happy.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.18.2011 @ 8:35 am
canvas
He streaked her blood across the canvas and sighed as it was absorbed and the outline of her silhouette thickened. She writhed beside him, struggling as he cut another slash into her arm and continued to paint out tiny pictures of his favorite memories with her in the outline. She used to be his favorite artwork. Now she was just another pathetic copy of everyone else’s idea of art.
But he was here to change that, he thought as he flicked his brush in quick movements. He stepped back to admire the picture and ignored her muffled screams. He loved how her blood didn’t turn brown like everyone else’s.
Her eyes closed and he kissed the top of her head. He had done her a favor really. She had died the art she was when he met her, and that beauty was perfectly preserved on his canvas.
She had died absolutely beautiful.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 08.08.2011 @ 4:12 am
muse
She stared at me and pointed the gun promptly at my temple. “Write.”
Well, I have to say. She has pretty good ways of inspiring me.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 07.30.2011 @ 12:09 am
lightning
Lightning struck her right before his eyes, but he could only clutch on to the rubber gloves he had just handed over for him to hold just a few seconds ago.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 07.26.2011 @ 9:19 am
crane
He saw the crane fall and pick her up from the ground, her temples caught between the pincers. Then he promptly dropped her into the vat of boiling iron, and watched as she got mixed in with the works.
Posted By Serena Mithane On 07.04.2011 @ 7:08 am
